Secession Petitions, the Election, and the News.

[Jester]

The US has the most progressive tax system of the entire OECD.

1) What on earth does this have to do with what I said? All I said was that if you want to fund unfunded liabilities, you need to raise taxes, and nobody seems to be clamouring for that.

2) The US also has by the most unequal income distribution of the comparable OECD countries. (Not as bad as Turkey, Mexico or Chile. Congratulations!)

3) The US also has by far the least generous redistributive programs.

The net effect of 2 and 3 is that, despite having higher strict progressiveness, both the net redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, and the total income equality, are much less in the US.

The top 10% of US earners pay 45% of the income taxes. Italy is the next highest at 42%. Switzerland is lowest at 20%. France is 28%, Germany is 31.2%, and UK is 38.6%.

In the US, the share of market income of the top 10% is 33.5%.

No. It hasn't been that low since the 1970s. The current US share is more like 46%. Which makes the rest of your calculations, not to speak of your conclusions, incorrect.

So, do you think we can tax our way out of this?

No, that would be suicidal, so long as unemployment is still north of 5%. Tax increases should only follow once the economy recovers, and even then, the key is to contain health care spending, which accounts for practically all of the future debt problem.

However, we are now very far afield. Although I guess we've more or less consigned ourselves to limitless topical wandering over here on the lounge...

-Jester

Afterthought: I'm assuming this is your source?